'Clash of the Titans 2' Will Be Converted To 3D, Says Director Jonathan Liebesman

Jonathan Liebesman, director of the new film 'Battle: Los Angeles,' told Cinematical that although the first 'Clash of the Titans' received negative criticism for its use of post-conversion 3D, he will nevertheless convert his forthcoming sequel, 'Wrath of the Titans,' rather than actually shooting it using 3D cameras. "I think what you have to remember is the first film was neither shot nor edited with 3D in mind," Liebesman said Wednesday via telephone from the Los Angeles junket for 'Battle: Los Angeles.' "It was shot as a 2D movie and edited as a 2D film, and they decided to convert it with six or seven weeks to go until release, which is insane; the technology was not there. That's why we're conceiving it from the start, from the ground up, in 3D, editing in 3D for 3D."

Liebesman's new film, 'Battle: Los Angeles,' was not shot in 3D, nor were his previous efforts, 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning' and 'Darkness Falls.' The reason the filmmaker is converting 'Wrath' rather than shooting it that way is because he wants to shoot on film, which will give the film's imagery better texture than he would get shooting digitally. "The big question was to shoot native 3D or not," Liebesman said. "I tested a lot of digital cameras, and quite frankly, because I'm going for a sort of much grittier, grounded look in 'Clash 2,' the look I want is almost 'Gladiator' with fantastical creatures in it, I found that the characteristics of film were more what I was going for."

"I didn't want to convert, but Warner Brothers showed me how far conversion's come," he explained. "You've got Chris Nolan doing 'Inception,' converting the DVD, you've got 'Harry Potter' being converted, 'Star Wars' being converted, so the conversion process has improved dramatically in the past two years." Liebesman said that he is planning ahead for some of the considerations he'll have to make in the conversion process. "Now that we're sort of conceiving the film for 3D, we're shooting it in 1.85:1 as opposed to 2.35:1, and going to convert."

"I'm comfortable with the conversion. But for the genre, I just feel like I have to shoot on film; I don't know, it just has that texture."